Buai causing poverty in Papua New Guinea society.

Many Papua New Guineans are engaging in four social activities

that are detrimental to their health, wealth, family and the country. Most of these activities are influence by the social and cultural environment. They are unaware of what they’re doing until in late-stage where their health is affected, or financially broke down, or children welfare is affected, especially, when kids are push out of the school due to school fee issues.

More than five hundred people I have counselled said, they learnt new bad social habits in our youths’ days in a peer environment. They registered their interest only to equal in the social class, the moment they registered their membership, they were chained to bad social habits for many years. Some of them, find it difficult to bail out. These people are not different to those living in Bomana prison. The four bad social habits are; chewing buai, smoking, drinking alcohol, and playing gamble.  

Buai/Betelnut

Buai is a tradition in Papua New Guinea and chewing is a social norm in many parts. Like in West tradition, beer or coffee brings friends together for business or politics, in Papua New Guinea Buai plays a pivotal role in mobilizing the communities to discuss community issues. Where there is the festive season, birthday party [etc.], chewing of Buai creates a school of social learning so the next generations learn to chew buai so the Buai is a culturally acceptable norm.

The Buai Chewers do not realize the Buai dig hold into their bank accounts. It’s costing lots of money per day. The Chewers think that spending K10.00 per day is manageable or within their financial capacity. However, one does not realize the annual cumulative financial cost of the Buai, indeed it’s an eye-opener to Clients that counselling session.

John is one of my Clients who has chewed for 20 years. He spends about K10.00 per day. An annual cumulative figure has created a financial hole in his bank account of K3,650.00. 

Multiplying the annual cost by twenty years of chewing Buai would cost him K73,000.00.

Chewing Buai is detrimental to our health. It can cause month cancer and raise blood pressure which in some cases may lead to fatal.  Buai can contribute to poor personal hygiene which causes stain teeth’s and clothes.

Smoke

Smokers never get a smoke holiday. Smokers never go without smoke per day. Smokers put tobacco before their life. Even the last money, they can spend on smoke than food or water.  Smoke is addictive and chained people’s live.  Those Smokers are no different to those in the prison.

Smoke can dig holes in Smoker’s bank account and easily drain all the money they have worked for. The smoke companies insert smoke chips into Smoker’s bank account. The account is linking every second.  The smoke affects every Papua New Guineas financial and end up empty pay packet every fortnight.  The worse thing one can do is get smoke credit at the black market.

For example; if someone smoke K10.00 every day, multiple by 365 days would cost him K3,650.00, multiple that by several years he/she has been smoking, the financial cost would increase. For example; 10 years times 3650 would cost the smoker K36,500.00.

So, if someone smokes both smoke and Buai at the same time and budget, it would cost the person K7,300.00. Base on the clinical assessment, the K10.00 cost per day for Buai or Smoke is just average only. One hundred people said they have spent more than K10.00 per day on smoke and buai. 95% of them said buai and smoke go well together.  Smoke can also affect Smoker’s health.  

Alcohol  

Drinkers spend too much money on one session. Many Papua New Guinea drinks to the last toea. One carton of beer is more beer coming. They can drink till the next day or until they are fully drinking. Once they drink the beer, the tape is running.  This means a large sum of money is gone into beer on one session and the remaining days to the next paydays, they go dry and drained and look for black market money loans at the high interest rate. Beer can also contribute to social problems like family violence, tribal fight [etc.] and also contributes to bad health.

Gambling

The common gambling in Papua New Guinea is a horse race and pokes machine.  The pokes machine digs huge holes in the lives of people. Pokes cause poverty in the lives of many workers. The National Gambling Control Board profits more than K100,000,00.00 million kina every year. Pokes machines are directly contributing to the poverty in Papua New Guinea.

These bad social habits are digging huge holes into ordinary worker’s bank account. Many are chained into these bad habits and it requires support from the government and other NGOs.